The Complete Works of   JAMES JOYCE

The Complete Works of   JAMES JOYCE Page 187

by James Joyce

  — I have only pushed to its logical conclusion the definition Aquinas has given of the beautiful.

  — Aquinas?

  — . He seems to regard the beautiful as that which satisfies the esthetic appetite and nothing more — that the mere apprehension of which pleases . . .

  — But he means the sublime — that which leads man upwards.

  — His remark would apply to a Dutch painter’s representation of a plate of onions.

  — No, no; that which pleases the soul in a state of sanctification, the soul seeking its spiritual good.

  — Aquinas’ definition of the good is an unsafe basis of operations: it is very wide. He seems to me almost ironical in his treatment of the “appetites.”

  The President scratched his head a little dubiously —

  — Of course Aquinas is an extraordinary mind, he murmured, the greatest doctor of the Church: but he requires immense interpretation. There are parts of Aquinas which no priest would think of announcing in the pulpit.

  — But what if I, as an artist, refuse to accept the cautions which are considered necessary for those who are still in a state of original stupidity?

  — I believe you are sincere but I will tell you this as an older human being than you are and as a man of some experience: the cult of beauty is difficult. Estheticism often begins well only to end in the vilest abominations of which .

  — .

  — It is insidious, it creeps into the mind, little by little . . .

  — . There seems to me to be effulgence in that theory instead of danger. The intelligent nature apprehends it at once.

  — S. Thomas of course . . .

  — Aquinas is certainly on the side of the capable artist. I hear no mention of instruction or elevation.

  — To support Ibsenism on Aquinas seems to me somewhat paradoxical. Young men often substitute brilliant paradox for conviction.

  — My conviction has led me nowhere: my theory states itself.

  — Ah, you are a paradoxist, said the President smiling with gentle satisfaction. I can see that . . . And there is another thing — a question of taste perhaps rather than anything else — which makes me think your theory juvenile. You don’t seem to understand the importance of the classical drama . . . Of course in his own line Ibsen also may be an admirable writer . . .

  — But, allow me, sir, said Stephen. My entire esteem is for the classical temper in art. Surely you must remember that I said . . .

  — So far as I can remember, said the President lifting to the pale sky a faintly smiling face on which memory endeavoured to bring a vacuous amiability to book, so far as I can remember you treated the Greek drama — the classical temper — very summarily indeed, with a kind of juvenile . . . impudence, shall I say?

  — But the Greek drama is heroic, monstruous. [] Eschylus is not a classical writer!

  — I told you you were a paradoxist, Mr Daedalus. You wish to upset centuries of literary criticism by a brilliant turn of speech, by a paradox.

  — I use the word ‘classical’ in a certain sense, with a certain definite meaning, that is all.

  — But you cannot use any terminology you like.

  — I have not changed the terms. I have explained them. By ‘classical’ I mean the slow elaborative patience of the art of satisfaction. The heroic, the fabulous, I call romantic. Menander perhaps, I don’t know . . .

  — All the world recognises Eschylus as a supreme classical dramatist.

  — O, the world of professors whom he helps to feed . . .

  — Competent critics, said the President severely, men of the highest culture. And even the public themselves can appreciate him. I have read, I think, in some . . . a newspaper, I think it was . . . that Irving, the great actor, Henry Irving produced one of his plays in London and that the London public flocked to see it.

  — From curiosity. The London public will flock to see anything new or strange. If Irving were to give an imitation of a hard-boiled egg they would flock to see it.

  The President received this absurdity with unflenching gravity and when he had come to the end of the path, he halted for a few instants before leading the way to the house.

  — I do not predict much success for your advocacy in this country, he said generally. Our people have their faith and they are happy. They are faithful to their Church and the Church is sufficient for them. Even for the profane world these modern pessimistic writers are a little too . . . too much.

  With his scornful mind scampering from Clonliffe College to Mullingar Stephen strove to make himself ready for some definite compact. The President had carefully brought the interview into the region of chattiness.

  — Yes, we are happy. Even the English people have begun to see the folly of these morbid tragedies, these wretched unhappy, unhealthy tragedies. I read the other day that some playwright had to change the last act of his play because it ended in catastrophe — some sordid murder or suicide or death.

  — Why not make death a capital offence? said Stephen. People are very timorous. It would be so much simpler to take the bull by the horns and have done with it.

  When they reached the hall of the College the President stood at the foot of the staircase before going up to his room. Stephen waited silently:

  — Begin to look at the bright side of things, Mr Daedalus. Art should be healthy first of all.

  The President gathered in his soutane for the ascent with a slow hermaphroditic gesture:

  — I must say you have defended your theory very well . . . very well indeed. I do not agree with it, of course, but I can see you have thought it all out carefully beforehand. You have thought it out carefully?

  — Yes, I have.

  — It is very interesting — a little paradoxical at times and a little juvenile — but I have been very interested in it. I am sure too that when your studies have brought you further afield you will be able to amend it so as to — fit in more with recognised facts; I am sure you will be able to apply it better then — when your mind has undergone a course of . . . regular . . . training and you have a larger, wider sense of . . . comparison .

  XX

  The President’s indefinite manner of closing the interview had left some doubts in Stephen’s mind; he was unable to decide whether the retreat upstairs was a breach of friendly relations or a politic confession of inability. However as no definite prohibition had been pronounced upon him he determined to proceed calmly on his way until he encountered a substantial check. When he met McCann again he smiled and waited to be questioned. His account of the interview went the rounds of the undergraduate classes and he was much amused to observe the startled expression of many pairs of eyes which, to judge from their open humiliated astonishment, appeared to behold in him characteristics of a moral Nelson. Maurice listened to his brother’s account of his battle with recognised authority but he made no remark upon it. Stephen himself, in default of another’s service, began to annotate the incident copiously, expending every suggestive phase of the interview. He consumed much imaginative fuel in this diverting chase of the presumable and his rapid changeful courses kindled in him a flame of discontent for Maurice’s impassiveness:

  — Are you listening to me at all? Do you know what I’m talking about?

  — Yes, it’s all right . . . You can read your paper, can’t you?

  — Yes, of course, I can . . . But what’s up with you? Are you bored? Are you thinking of anything?

  — Well . . . yes, I am.

  — What?

  — I have found out why I feel different this evening. Why, do you think?

  — I don’t know. Tell us.

  — I have been walking [on] from the ball of my left foot. I usually walk from the ball of my right foot.

  Stephen looked sideways at the speaker’s solemn face to see if there were any signs thereon of a satirical mood but, finding only steadfast
self-analysis, he said:

  — Indeed? That’s damned interesting.

  On the Saturday night which had been fixed for the reading of the paper Stephen found himself facing the benches in the Physics’ Theatre. While the minutes were being read out by the secretary he had time to observe his father’s eyeglass glimmering high up near the window and he divined more than saw the burly form of Mr Casey hard by that observant centre. He could not see his brother but in the front benches he noticed Father Butt and McCann and two other priests. The chairman was Mr Keane, the professor of English composition. When the formal business was ended the chairman called on the essayist to read his paper and Stephen stood up. He waited until a compliment of discreet applause had subsided, and until McCann’s energetic hands had given four resounding claps as a concluding solo of welcome. Then he read out his essay. He read it quietly and distinctly, involving every hardihood of thought or expression in an envelope of low innocuous melody. He read it on calmly to the end: his reading was never once interrupted with applause: and when he had read out the final sentences in a tone of metallic clearness he sat down.

  The first single thought that emerged through a swift mood of confusion was the bright conviction that he should never have written his essay. While he was gloomily taking counsel with himself as to whether he should fling the manuscript at their heads and march home or remain as he was shading his face from the light of the candles on the Chairman’s table he became aware that the discussion on his paper had begun: this discovery surprised him. Whelan, the orator of the College, was proposing a vote of thanks and wagging his head in time to ornate phrases. Stephen wondered did anyone else observe the infantile movements of the orator’s mouth. He wished that Whelan would shut his jaws with a clap so as to reveal the presence of solid teeth; the mere sound of the speech reminded him of the noise Nurse Sarah used to make when she mashed Isabel’s bread-and-milk in the blue bowl which his mother now used to hold starch. But he at once corrected himself for such a manner of criticism and strove to listen to the words of the orator. Whelan was profusely admiring he felt (he said) during the reading of Mr Daedalus’ essay as though he had been listening to the discourse of angels and did not know the language that they spoke. It was with some diffidence that he ventured to criticise but it was evident that Mr Daedalus did not understand the beauty of the Attic theatre. He pointed out that Eschylus was an imperishable name and he predicted that the drama of the Greeks would outlive many civilisations. Stephen noticed that Whelan said ‘yisterday’ twice instead of ‘yesterday’ in imitation of Father Butt who was a South of England man and he speculated as to whether it was a Dominican preacher or a Jesuit preacher [that] who had given the orator his final phrase. “Greek art” said Whelan “is not for a time but for all times. It stands aloof, alone. It is imperial, imperious and imperative.”

  McCann seconded the vote of thanks which had been so ably proposed by Mr Whelan and he desired to add his tribute to Mr Whelan’s eloquent tribute to the essayist of the night. There were perhaps many things in the paper which Mr Daedalus had read to them with which he could not agree, but he was not such a blind partizan of antiquity for antiquity’s sake as Mr Whelan seemed to be. Modern ideas must find their expression: the modern world had to face pressing problems: and he considered that any writer who could call attention to those problems in a striking way was well worthy of every serious person’s consideration. He considered that he was speaking for one and all of those present when he said that Mr Daedalus, by reading his frank and earnest essay that night, had conferred a benefit on the society.

  The general diversion of the night began when these two opening speeches had ended. Stephen was subjected to the fires of six or seven hostile speakers. One speaker, a young man named Magee, said he was surprised that any paper which was conceived in a spirit so hostile to the spirit of religion itself — he did not know if Mr Daedalus understood the true purport of the theory he propounded — should find approval in their society. Who but the Church had sustained and fostered the artistic temper? Had not the drama owed its very birth to religion? That was indeed a poor theory which tried to bolster up the dull dramas of sinful intrigues and to decry the immortal masterpieces. Mr Magee said he did not know as much about Ibsen as Mr Daedalus did — nor did he want to know anything about him — but he knew that one of his plays was about the sanitary condition of a bathing-place. If this was drama he did not see why some Dublin Shakespeare should not pen an immortal work dealing with the new Main Drainage Scheme of the Dublin Corporation. This speech was the signal for a general attack. The essay was pronounced a jingle of meaningless words, a clever presentation of vicious principles in the guise of artistic theories, a reproduction of the decadent literary opinions of exhausted European capitals. The essayist was supposed to intend parts of his essay as efforts at practical joking: everyone knew that would be famous when the unknown authors of whom Mr Daedalus was so fond were dead and forgotten. Ancient art loved to uphold the beautiful and the sublime: modern art might select other themes: but those who still preserved their minds uncontaminated by atheistic poisons would know which to choose. The climax of aggressiveness was reached when Hughes stood up. He declared in ringing Northern accents that the moral welfare of the Irish people was menaced by such theories. They wanted no foreign filth. Mr Daedalus might read what authors he liked, of course, but the Irish people had their own glorious literature where they could always find fresh ideals to spur them on to new patriotic endeavours. Mr Daedalus was himself a renegade from the Nationalist ranks: he professed cosmopolitism. But a man that was of all countries was of no country — you must first have a nation before you have art. Mr Daedalus might do as he pleased, kneel at the shrine of Art (with a capital A), and rave about obscure authors. In spite of [his] any hypocritical use of the name of a great doctor of the Church Ireland would be on her guard against the insidious theory that art can be separated from morality. It they were to have art let it be moral art, art that elevated, above all, national art,

  Kindly Irish of the Irish,

  Neither Saxon nor Italian.

  When the time had come for the Chairman to sum up and to put the motion before the house there was the usual pause. In this pause Father Butt rose and begged leave to say a few words. The benches applauded with excitement and settled themselves to hear a denunciation . Father Butt excused himself amid cries of “No, no” for detaining his audience at such an advanced hour but he thought he should enter a word in favour of the much-abused essayist. He would be and he felt the uncomfortableness of his office all the more since one of the speakers had, not unjustly, described the language in which Mr Daedalus’ essay had been couched as a language of angels. Mr Daedalus had contributed a very striking paper, a paper which had filled the house and entertained them by the lively discussion which it had provoked. Of course everyone could not be of the same opinion in matters artistic. Mr Daedalus admitted the conflict between romantics and classicals as the condition of all achievement and they had certainly proof that night that a conflict between antagonistic theories had been able to produce such distinct achievements as the essay itself, a remarkable piece of work, on the one hand and the memorable attack delivered by Mr Hughes, as leader of the opposition, on the other hand. He thought that one or two of the speakers had been unduly severe with the essayist but he was confident that the essayist was well able to take care of himself in the matter of argument. As for the theory itself Father Butt confessed that it was a new sensation for him to hear Thomas Aquinas quoted as an authority on esthetic philosophy. Esthetic philosophy was a modern branch and if it was anything at all, it was practical. Aquinas had treated slightly of the beautiful but always from a theoretic standpoint. To interpret his statements practically one needed a fuller knowledge than Mr Daedalus could have of his entire theology. At the same time he would not go so far as to say that Mr Daedalus had really, intentionally or unintentionally, misinterpret
ed Aquinas. But just as an act which may be good in itself may become bad by reason of circumstances so an object intrinsically beautiful may be vitiated by other considerations. Mr Daedalus had chosen to consider beauty intrinsically and to neglect these other considerations. But beauty also has its practical side. Mr Daedalus was a passionate admirer of the artistic and such people are not always the most practical people in the [side] world. Father Butt then reminded his audience of the story of King Alfred and the old woman who was cooking cakes — of the theorist, that is, and of the practical person and concluded by expressing the hope that the essayist would emulate King Alfred and not be too severe on the practical persons who had criticised him.

  The chairman in his summing-up speech complimented the essayist on his style but he said the essayist had evidently forgotten that art implies selection. He thought that the discussion on the paper had been very instructive and he was sure they were all thankful to Father Butt for his clear, concise criticism. Mr Daedalus had been somewhat severely handled but he thought that, considering the many excellences of his paper, he (the Chairman) was well justified in asking them to agree unanimously that the best thanks of this society [are] were due and [are] were hereby tendered to Mr Daedalus for his admirable and instructive paper! The vote of thanks was passed unanimously but without enthusiasm.

  Stephen stood up and bowed. It was customary for the essayist of the night to avail himself of this occasion for replying to his critics but Stephen contented himself with acknowledging the vote of thanks. Some called on him for a speech but, when the Chairman had waited in vain for a few moments, the proceedings ran on rapidly to a close. In five minutes the Physics’ Theatre was empty. Downstairs in the hall the young men were busy putting on their coats and lighting cigarettes. Stephen looked for his father and Maurice but could see them nowhere so he set out for home alone. At the corner of the Green he came up with a group of four young men, Madden, Cranly, a young medical student named Temple, and a clerk in the Custom-House. Madden caught Stephen’s arm and said consolingly in private:

 

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